Change plot X-axis values and adjustments to the graph

Hey everyone!

I have a task to write a command which replicates a graph. The file "SPX" contains two columns with date info in the first column and daily closing values in the second column.

I am very close to succeeding; my line of code I've written so far is as follows:

h = plot(SPX(:,1),SPX(:,2),'LineWidth',0.4,'Color',[0 0.5 0.5])

and this line of code produces the following graph:

However, my graph should eventually look like is this:

As you can see, my graph is missing the correct years (1990, 1995, 2000 etc.) on the X-axis. Also, my graph should go from end to end (i.e. no empty space), which is does not do.

I'd be super happy with some advice/hints on how I can change my line of code to achieve this. Thank you!

Best regards

Daniel

[Daniel Miller]

I tried to improve it by changing the code like this, but didn't get it corrected:

h = plot(SPX(:,1),SPX(:,2),'LineWidth',0.4,'Color',[0 0.5 0.5]);
xticks(SPX(:,1),[7.26 7.28 7.32 7.34 7.36 7.38])
xticklabels(SPX(:,1),{'x = 1990','x = 1995','x = 2000','x = 2005','x = 2010','x = 2015'})

Answer 1

[Steven Lord]

Instead of plotting using date numbers, if you're using a release that supports them store your date and time data as a datetime array.

t = 0:20;
x = datetime('today') + days(t);
y = t.^2;
h = plot(x, y);

You can control the format of the ticks on the axes using xtickformat as shown on this documentation page.

[Daniel Miller]

Thank you for the help, Steven!

I managed to add the years correctly on the X-Axis:

h = plot(SPX(:,1),SPX(:,2),'LineWidth',0.4,'Color',[0 0.5 0.5]);
datetick('x','YYYY')

I added the "datetick('x' , 'YYYY')" and this did the trick.

The last thing I would need to do is remove the space from both sides between the Y-Axis and my graph line. If you have any suggestions on how to do this, I'd be very thankful.

Best regards

Daniel